Anon

You're the one that dug the hole and handed me the shovel pal. It's gonna take a while before the dirt stops falling on you.

leib10

I'm afraid that you're the one who misunderstood me and continues to do so. Bluesman understands my statement perfectly.

__________________
"The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes." G-Man

Anon

I think Bluesman is just being (too) nice in the interests of board harmony to be honest.

I don't think i misinterpreted you at all...

I clearly stated that it was foolish to forgive and forget, that it violated the most basic principle of learning from one's mistakes, and you clearly stated that those who feel the way Blue and i do are "continuing the hate and bigotry that the Nazis started."
In effect, you called me a hateful bigot, and by extension...a Nazi.

So no, i'm not about to chuckle that off as some misunderstanding, when it clearly was not. You've defended nazis MANY times on this forum, and frankly, it's about time you've been called out for it.

leib10

Never have I defended Nazis. It's impossible to do that as their guilt is not in doubt. However, I've fought against the allegation that every member of the German race during the Third Reich was a Nazi.

Anon

Every member of the German nation that did not at least indirectly oppose the nazis was fit for firebombing as far as i'm concerned.

Carrying out the policies(or tacitly approving of them or being apathetic to them) is JUST AS BAD as if they were your policies to begin with.

WWII Germany was a nation of murderers, from the lowliest Hitler Youth participant right on up the line to the Fuhrer.

There is no defense for any of them.

And that's a fact.

We all know the old saying "All that's required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"....but i'll tell you that saying should be modified to:

Those who do nothing to stop evil are not good men, they're moral cowards and just as culpable as the evil-doers themselves.

leib10

It confuses me that you say that a German soldier's duty in WWII was to abandon family, country, and duty and defect. How is that possible, especially coming from you, an ex-soldier?

If you please, please continue our discussion by PM'ing me. I think we've hijacked this and other threads long enough.

Anon

How do you figure that starting and executing a global war of aggression in order to steal land and anhillate whole race(s) of people that had done nothing to the German people is "doing your duty?"

Hmmm?

And do you think for ONE SECOND that me or any other Western soldier on this board would do the same?

I think not.

That's all i have to say on this subject, i see no need to continue. I've made my position excruciatingly clear.

leib10

As have I. One last thing though.

Almost all historians have concluded that the German populace and even front-line soldiers were pretty much kept in the dark about what went on behind the concentration camp fences. Whether they really were ignorant to the fact or if they were just lying will never be known. However, what is known is that when they learned about the concentration camps after Germany had been defeated, the lot of them were mortified. Once again, an unsubstantiated assertion, but that's all we have.

Another issue to consider was that the penalties for desertion and disobeying orders was far heavier in the German Army than it was in most Western Armies, especially later in the war with the "flying court-martials". Consequences could also affect the soldier's family.

So my point is, would the average German be willing to risk his life and the lives of his loved ones on a whim, if they were really ignorant to the Holocaust? Would he be willing to refuse to take orders and to defect, abandoning his loved ones to an unknown fate? I would say no.

Hawg166

Well since we are talking tactical leaders, I of course would be remiss if I didnt say as far as aviation was concerned it would be Ernst Boelcke and that as far as naval tactics go, the good Admiral Nelson again gets my vote.

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"Now we shall have ourselves a pell mell battle!" ......The Immortal Memory, Admiral Nelson

leib10

You mean Oswald Boelcke?

Bluesman

If he didn't, then I guess I'm not as up on WWI aces as I thought.

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"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

YellowFever

As far as aviatian goes, I'll give you Boelcke. As for naval tactics, I'm not sure Nelson was the best.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Sun-sin

Excerpt:


Admiral George Alexander Ballard of the Royal Navy considered Yi Sun-sin a great naval commander, and compared him to Lord Nelson of England:


It is always difficult for Englishmen to admit that Nelson ever had an equal in his profession, but if any man is entitled to be so regarded, it should be this great naval commander of Asiatic race who never knew defeat and died in the presence of the enemy; of whose movements a track-chart might be compiled from the wrecks of hundreds of Japanese ships lying with their valiant crews at the bottom of the sea, off the coasts of the Korean peninsula... and it seems, in truth, no exaggeration to assert that from first to last he never made a mistake, for his work was so complete under each variety of circumstances as to defy criticism... His whole career might be summarized by saying that, although he had no lessons from past history to serve as a guide, he waged war on the sea as it should be waged if it is to produce definite results, and ended by making the supreme sacrifice of a defender of his country. (The Influence of the Sea on The Political History of Japan, pp. 66–67.)


As for my own pick for the best tactician, it's gotta be Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Confederate side in our civil war. The man was a racist piece of sh*t who actually founded the Ku Klux Klan but I don't know if we had a better cavalryman.
(On a side note, If you watched Forrest Gump, the movie, he was Forrest's great great grandfather or something..lol)

http://www.civilwarhome.com/forrestcampaigns.htm

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...If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space!

pdf27

Sidney Jary MC. He was one of very, very few (IIRC he may even have been the only) British platoon commander to stay alive, unwounded and in charge of his Platoon all the way from D-Day to VE-Day. He must have been doing something right to get that far - infantry battalions lived longer on the Somme than in Normandy...

leib10

He might've gone for Ernst Udet.

zraver

Creighton Abrams

Sailor Malan

Douglas Bader

Werner Molders

Donald Darby

Whitmann